Quoting: A_Habs_fan
I think we can also expand this thread into undrafted prospects ( most likely will be used to talk about draft eligibles ) if we want to. So far I've only scouted some leftover players from last year and Wright, Savoie, Lambert. Wright looks absolutely phenomenal, Savoie's a great player too but he falls under the "small, not physical kid" stigma that could cost him some draft spots. I have to agree that Lambert is kind of falling with him struggling in Finland
Call me crazy, but I don't think there's any player from the upcoming draft class I'd be in a hurry to rush to the NHL, even Wright.
I'm a firm believer in NHLe being a strong indicator, not necessarily an end-all-be-all metric, of an undrafted prospect's potential. Using NHLe, Wright doesn't appear to be anything profoundly special, at least not yet. Shane Wright projects to an NHLe of 34.484 points per 82GP.
Looking at the NHe for previous first-overall forwards in their first season and their actual production, we see:
Lafreniere - 48.591 points per 82GP (30.750pts / 82GP actual)
Hughes - 32.374 points per 82GP (28.230pts / 82GP actual)
Hischer - 36.077 points per 82GP (52pts / 82GP actual)
Matthews - 53.596 points per 82GP (69pts / 82GP actual)
McDavid - 64.084 points per 82GP (87.467pts / 82GP actual)
and should expect Wright to fall between with the likes of Hughes and Hischier more than in the camp with McDavid and Matthews. Many people believed Hughes wasn't ready, should Wright be expected to be ready?
Considering the unspectacular debuts for many players recently selected within the top-3 of their draft class and the most-likely teams Wright would end up on (ARI, MON, CHI, OTT, and SEA total to 66.9% or about two-thirds), I think any team looking to call Shane's name first overall at this upcoming draft -
possibly with Chicago and Ottawa being the exceptions - I wouldn't rush Wright in the NHL beyond his 9 games to start the season. Between the quality of teammates he would be forced to play alongside and likely getting hammered by quality of opposition, giving Wright the extra year to develop alongside his peers or in Europe makes a lot more sense to me.
The NHL and AHL really need to work out some other system for the CHL age agreement. The transfer system is broken and disparages the top of every draft class.